The City VII
#7 of The City
The group of three reached the cave entrance and peered in. Their thermal sights lit up a trail of fresh blood from Astra leading into the system. They turned towards each other with a nod and made their way in, following the blood trail. As they went deeper, they started to hear hushed talking from a group of soldiers, with one clearing their throat and loudly asking for a country of origin. Perpetuum turned to Scripta and Nihilo with a nod, motioning with a finger for silence. They crept forwards and turned off their thermal goggles, as the lamps in the chamber would have overloaded them. Sitting in the shadows, they scanned the room.
In the center, a beige rabbit, missing patches of skin on his forearms, was tied up. Blood ran down his fur from his head, dripping to the floor as an eagle struck him. The rabbit managed to chuckle softly, coughing a few times as the rat said, "Who sent you?"
The rabbit looked up and narrowed his eyes with a smirk. "Alright, alright. Your mother sent for me."
The eagle hit him again, opening a wound over his eye and turning away. He nodded towards the other two soldiers in the room. "Execute, then get everything from that suit."
Perp nodded, causing the hidden group to chamber a round, aim, and fire in near-synchrinosity, sending the three uniformed soldiers to the floor. The rabbit coughed up some more blood and shuddered. "Fuck, could you be any later?"
Perp moved to try and undo the ropes tying him up. "You know how we work, Astra. Late to the party but perfectly timed. Who were they?"
Astra shook his head. "Can't undo those. Det cord. Mishandle it, we're all blown to hell. Gotta leave me. As for them, well, he's either Target One or a body double. Apparently Target One was supposed to be inspecting that facility tonight. Changed itinerary."
Perp stepped back, looking at the restraints, up and down, before shaking his head. "No..."
Nihilo grabbed Perp's shoulder. "Come on, mate. You heard him..."
Scripta held up an ID card from the eagle. "Target One, indeed. Region's gonna be destabilized. We need to transmit."
Astra nodded. "Do what we were sent to. I knew the risks. Secure the suit and get going. It has the data in it."
Scripta and Nihilo rushed out of the room to get the suit secure. Perp took a few steps and looked back, seeing Astra give one more nod before facing the tunnel and jogging away.
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Khopesh woke up, rubbing his eyes and moving aside the piles of paper next to him. Asleep at the desk, again. He sighed, standing and stretching before heading to his bathroom, jumping into the shower and hopping out. As he dressed, a knock came on his door. "Major Aeterno,sir!"
Khopesh chuckled and buttoned his shirt, opening the door to a saluting raptor. "Chrissake, Phel. I told you to call me Khopesh."
The white raptor shifted around a bit and nodded slowly, lowering his salute and passing Khopesh a folder. "The general wanted me to give this to you, said we've got an intelligence gathering opportunity."
Khopesh flipped open the folder, waving in the raptor and going to a machine in the corner. "Sit. Coffee?"
Phel nodded, slowly lowering himself onto the couch. "Y-y-ye-alright. Yes please, sir."
Khopesh walked back, handing him a cup of coffee as he shook his head and flipped open the folder. He glanced through it with a nod. "Alright, I see. So, we get a bunch of communication reports? Seems good. Can you break the code? It's why you were picked."
Phel sipped the coffee, listening, before nodding at the question and holding up a charm on his neck. "All in here. Brute-force code breakers. Can bust any code-based system."
Khopesh sipped and nodded, reading over the file. "Then it's a good thing I pulled you. I'm counting on you, Phel."
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Khopesh stepped down into the basement, walking towards Sill and Copp, "How's the lab?"
Copp looked up and smiled, pointing to a crate in the corner. "Got the first batch of Ventis done. Not enough for everyone... Maybe four people?"
Khopesh nodded. "Me, Haka, Jak, Vir. Done."
Sill looked up from her console, tilting her head. "Don't you trust anyone else with them?"
Copp tried to shush her, but Khopesh had already leaned into her work area. "Imagine, alright, just imagine. I give these to four random recruits, four privates. You got three of us, and one from Eagle Rock. The three know not to screw around. Haka drilled that into their skulls, alright? But the fourth, the Eagle Rock wildcard, he sees it and notices, 'hey, this is a bit longer, a bit bigger, than the nine-bangs I usually get'. And let's say he goes and compares them and confirms, yes, it is different. So, he tries one out. Maybe the fusing is different, maybe he's an idiot, but for whatever reason, he tosses it and stares at it and it goes off. He goes deaf and blind, blows the mission, and then Zor shuts us all down because we decided to give him something like that. Not good."
Sill looked down, nodding a bit. "S-sorry."
Khopesh scratched her ears, head shaking a bit. "No harm, no foul. Just keep up the good programming, alright?"
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Khopesh jogged across the campus, giving a wave to everyone cheering for him as he made his way up the steps to the old library. He moved behind the circulation desk and past the stacks of reference books, hopping into an elevator that went into the lowest basement. The doors slid open, showing a large array of consoles around a central table. The rest of the command of Lapillus was already seated, with a second unit -- Khopesh thought they might be Apocrypha -- mixed with them. Zor smiled and waved him over. "And this, everyone, is Khopesh. He'll be leading the data mining team."
Khopesh nodded and sat next to Jak, glancing over at her map and inspecting it as a lion, whom Khopesh barely recognized as Colonel Wilems, stood up. "So the plan is, Apocrypha will take the brunt of the enemy forces to the south as Lapillus moves in through the east side, entering the facility, finding the mainframe, and extracting the data."
Khopesh read over the map Jak had and muttered, "That's not possible."
Wilems tilted his head and growled slightly. "Problem, Major?"
Khopesh nodded, pointing to the map. "Er, well, this is all, hah, you're using a map from nearly 100 years ago. This entire area is different. This street was paved over and the east area, I mean, it's an industrial park right now, or, it was and by now it's probably full of booby traps."
Wilems narrowed his eyes. "Doubting my plan, civvie?"
Khopesh looked up and blinked a bit. "Saving you from paperwork when you have to explain to Zor why there's 167 dead furs that followed you plan right into a trap."
The leaders of Apocrypha mumbled among themselves before Zor slammed down his paw. "Wilems, Aeterno has an intimate knowledge of maps and map dating. He's right here. So, Major, what do you suggest?"
Khopesh grabbed a marker and started drawing on the table. "Well, we know the industrial park, at worst, is trapped, and at best, has a lot of cover. How about we trick these guys, pull them east, then Lapillus goes from the south, grabs the data, and based on the info from Apocrypha on the industrial park, we can go ahead and attack from behind? Squeeze the force to death?"
Wilems stood and coughed. "If this place is rigged, you're sending my furs to death!"
Khopesh shook his head a bit. "Not necessarily. You have EOD technicians, you have engineers. We have tech people and medics. Who can defuse the bombs faster?"
Zor smirked slightly at the statement and nodded. "Damn fox is right, Wilems. We're doing his plan. 36 hours from now, we move."
As everyone collected their things, Wilems walked up to Khopesh. Wilems stood a half-foot taller than Khopesh and was more muscularly built. If only I still had...
Wilems stared down Khopesh and muttered, "If any one of my furs dies, it's on your head."
Khopesh looked up and nodded. "Wouldn't have it any other way."